NT female seeks input on AS male's fears

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Sometimes text doesn't do things justice.

Is that why he prefers the dirty pictures?

It's a possibility, maybe he's just straight.

I think that strictly speaking it's not a blindness to emotion but a difficulty in understanding and processing them. My experience of it is that I can often "see" something, but it may take some time before I know what it is. A bell will go off inside me, but I don't know if it's a dinner bell or a fire alarm. I think the term puts more emphasis on the person's own feelings, though of course it's bound to impact on the ability to read the feelings of others. One brilliant thing that came from my Relate sessions was the realisation that relationship problems are down to unidentified feelings. They didn't twig Aspergers, and thought I was probably full of repression, so I got this "it's as easy as you want it to be" thing from them......but they tended to put it very tactfully with no pressure, so I was able to take on board the notion that getting au fait with feelings was pretty much the most important thing I could possibly do with my time.

Good - the idea had an impact on him, and I really do believe it's the best idea there is. I guess the next difficulty would be alerting him to the importance of understanding emotions in relationships, without making him conclude that he doesn't stand a chance in relationships, because when you first put "I can't understand feelings" with "understanding feelings is crucial in a relationship," then you have something very discouraging. So I'd use whatever NT skills you have when discussing that with him, and be sure to mention what good news there is..........for one thing, Aspies might not know what they're feeling, but I think we still have some kind of "animal" controls operating, so whether we know our feelings or not, we will react, and those reactions won't always have bad results. For another thing, Aspies learn, even about emotions, if they see the point and become interested enough. The buzz of getting an "emotion thing" right for the first time is fantastic.


Rapid, large mood swings with few clues before they happen? Must say my mood can turn on a sixpence, but it's got easier with age, and better managed, so I think it should get better if you can handle the rollercoaster ride in the meantime. Seems like you're both familiar enough with each other's anger to know that it's not Armageddon.



You mean that's what he said about his bluntness too?


That might be preferable to his going the other way, though I don't want to play this down. It takes a lot to get me into a completely new social situation. So what would happen if he paid you a random visit and a friend was there? Would he just go away and come back later? It's a huge thing for a thinking Aspie to meet the partner's friends and relatives. Probably best approached very gradually, one person who he's been told a few (good) things about, a very brief first meeting, no expectations except standard courtesy.

More later.

YES. I think that is exactly what happened in his mind, prior to our rendezvous (and on several other occasions that I can recall). Many times, I've had a powerful sense of trying to convince him it's a dinner bell, but he always decides it's a fire alarm.


I absolutely agree. There were lots of those in my marriage. I would like to say, mainly on his end, but that would be unfair. In retrospect, there were plenty on my end too.

For this reason, I'm glad my Aspie has given me so much time to think things through, so I don't bring that baggage into the relationship. For example, I was very, very angry with him for a while, for having children with another woman. I wasn't sure I could ever forgive him for that, and I was afraid I'd (subconsciously) take it out on him - or worse, the kids. I had similar anger over other things too. But it was necessary to come to terms with it, and eventually, I did.


I think this is great news - I'm glad there's so much potential here. He's already made a few steps in the right direction.

Maybe this also explains why he's in "blackout mode" with me right now: he hates it when people change their minds. He thinks they are liars and fakes and phonies, because I don't think he sees what occurred between time A and time B to cause that change. (Hence my sharp question - "were you lying then or are you lying now" - to illustrate that he does it too.) Now that I've brought it to his attention, maybe he wants to be careful not to do that to me.

Unfortunately, the "right answer" always means the same thing: he says no to me, and refuses to see me or talk to me. I feel like I've endured a lifetime's worth of rejection. Sometimes I wonder why I even care anymore.


I'd say that's accurate. Problem is, I'm too exhausted to get angry anymore. That's bad, when a person is so worn out that the anger dies. I've tried to imagine how I will react if/when he calls again. "Whatever" is the first feeling that comes to mind. I imagine saying, "spare me the false starts and high hopes, and just get straight to the freak-out and rejection. That's all it ever is anyway, so save us both some time and just get it over with." It would be a cruel thing to say, and of course I wouldn't. But that is more or less how I feel. Frustrated. Exhausted. Drained. Like it's pointless.


Well, he never has and never would pay me a random visit, so I've never considered what he might do in that case. I have no idea. This may sound really weird, but other than the odd, brief exchange with a bartender or a waitress, and once a colleague of his we bumped into, I have never visually observed him interact with a third person. I can't even imagine what a three-way conversation might be like. The colleague was the only instance - in a cafe - which lasted about 5 minutes. Awkward. He sensed that he was "interrupting something" and quickly excused himself.

Back then, 98% of the time we spent together was in his apartment, alone. When he spends time with me, it is only with me, and there's really only one thing he wants to be doing. He's always kept our "space" sealed off from the rest of the world. Seeing him outdoors, and doing normal things together in public, in the daytime, is actually a fairly new, novel thing. (If this seems bizarre, it is also bizarre by NT standards. I just intuited that he was not a "normal relationship" kind of guy, and didn't mind.)

My mother is dying to meet him, but it is frankly impossible for me to imagine that ever happening. It is also very difficult to imagine spending time with him and the kids. I'm comfortable with integrating additional people into "our space" - if he wants me to help out as a step-mom, we'd have to - but I have extreme difficulty visualizing how he would do that.

(P.S. Bless you for letting me unload some of these negative feelings. Just articulating them is helpful for me.)

There was a time when it would have stung me for a partner to offer me space. I wouldn't hear of it when my first girlfriend said a relationship needed spaces. For a time, anything she wanted to do that would exclude me, felt like a threat. After a while I realised that it wasn't the actual 24/7 attention I wanted, it was the notion that if I really needed her, she would be there. But after the relationship ended felt embarrassed at having expected so much, and ever since that I've been very coy about expressing much of a need at all for much time from partners. I think I said a while back how in one relationship we were living in each other's pockets, as close to 24/7 as it would go, and how I never once felt it was too much. The received wisdom is that it's unwise, and these days I'd say they've got a point.

But does he mean being together all the time, or just being potentially there for each other all the time?


So it's more than keeping appointments?

I believe that he too thinks in a split-personality way, as a reality-checker, and has the impulse to extend the service to others (i.e., me). We've had several "devil's advocate" type conversations, where I find myself attempting to address and overcome his true, tangible concerns, as well as his "fake," hypothetical concerns. Quite maddening! I understand the thought process - I do it too. But I do endeavor to keep it to myself.


He means being accessible at all times, not being together all the time. Based on my previous experience with him, I would expect the time we do spend together to be very intense, to the exclusion of all else. Back in our school days, he needed me to stay over 4-6 nights/week. We both work a lot and have more responsibilities now, so I'd expect perhaps 1-3/nights week. (Frankly, I'd prefer to just move in, but saying so strikes me as VERY pushy. I have no idea how he'd react to that.) So, like you, it's not the actual 24/7 attention he wants, it's to know that I'm right here anytime. He has that already, but he's ignoring it.


He too is perfectly able to plan, and has made and kept appointments all his life. But I would describe the "intention deficit" in much broader terms than that, over a longer timeline, which is critical when forming and keeping romantic relationships.

For example, in general, NT men know that the longer they stay in a relationship, the more reasonably the woman may develop an expectation that they will get married. It's a given that NT women want and expect a commitment, so by, say, the 1, 2, or 3 year-mark (depending on age and other circumstances), it comes time for the man to decide whether or not to commit. Typically, either he buys an engagement ring and proposes; or he's not sure and delays, until his unwillingness to commit causes the relationship to fall apart. Either way, women conventionally presume, marriage is the man's decision.

Now, unlike women, most men do not sit around thinking about, "is this the one? Is this who I'm going to spend the rest of my life with?" But women do plan their lives quite far in advance: we must, with both family and career obligations to manage. So, as a courtesy to us, when we ask where the relationship is going, we need a straight answer, within a reasonable period of time. NT men know this. They hate the pressure, but they know it is not acceptable to just string us along indefinitely.

I've learned that my Aspie does not think this way. He told me he never plans his (personal) life more than 2 days ahead. It never occurs to him that women go to great lengths to flex and bend, and compromise other aspects of their lives, in order to keep the relationship going; or that expectations increase as time passes.

Example: I know of one woman he'd been in a relationship with for 2 years. She'd planned her career around his location, and had started to presume that they were engaged. To NTs, that was a reasonable presumption. But to him, she was "just a girlfriend," no different than if he'd met her in a bar a month earlier. When pressed, he was quite insistent that he had no intention to marry her. To her NT ears, that meant he would never marry her, had never intended to marry her, and she'd just wasted 2 years of her life. That relationship ended quite badly - in part due to his "intention deficit," and how it was perceived. The idea that someone could have an absence of any intentions at all, and was simply being honest about that, is unheard of and incomprehensible to NTs. It sounded like a gigantic load of bull, hurt her very badly, and almost got him beat up.

So right, it's much different from keeping an appointment on X day at Y time - rather, it's more general, longer-term intentions.

I agree - my Aspie and I lived the same way for some time, and while I found it unusual, I didn't feel it was too much.

This raises a conundrum. At each critical juncture in the past, we both felt intensely inhibited and failed to communicate what we needed and wanted, which is why we did not wind up together. My socially-conditioned expectation is that when the man is ready to commit, he will make that clear (although a little hinting and prompting may be required).

In contrast, my Aspie has been all over the map. I never have any idea what he wants. On one hand, my offers of space and flexibility have been met with a hung head, downcast eyes, and "that's just not enough." On on the other, most recently he suggested sex "with no commitments" (whatever he means by that), and then changed his mind. We've been over it several times, and we've agreed that sex is really not possible, without feeling a deep emotional attachment. I think that's realistic and I'm glad he feels the same way I do.

So when the time comes, I wonder if I should take the lead, and suggest the next relationship moves. It will feel very unnatural to be so pushy, but perhaps I should grit my teeth and just say what I have in mind. Our needs are probably not too different. I'm starting to wonder if he too is "coy" about expressing his needs. We were both "coy" in the past and missed the boat, several times - so it follows that one of us needs to not be coy anymore, right?

I've been thinking hard about this. The concept that a person may need to be explicitly taught "the importance of understanding emotions in relationships" blows my mind. Growing up, my parents placed tremendous emphasis on communicating emotions. My father in particular, due to his emotionally "sterile" upbringing. Basically his rule was, anything goes - so long as you can explain your thoughts and feelings. If I made him mad, he'd cool off the instant I provided an explanation. That seemed fair to me. Most of my romantic relationships have been similar. Explain yourself = everything is ok.

I'd contrast, what little I know about my Aspie's upbringing suggests that it was radically different. Only recently he told me he had "no relationship" with his father, which means his mother did all the child-rearing. For various reasons, I don't think she ever placed much priority on communicating emotions. So it would seem that it comes more instinctively to me.

Still, it's hard for me to understand, because I knew him to be intensely emotional, more so than any NT I've been involved with. He just didn't verbalize it. It was physical, facial expressions, that weird "emotional energy," etc. I really wished for explicit, verbal confirmation, but I could read or infer most of what I wanted to know. He's never said, "I love you" or "I miss you." But he had gestures that said it quite clearly, so I never felt the need to press him to articulate his emotions. I've thought, "why ask, and make him uncomfortable, if you're already pretty sure of the answer?" The problem with that is, I've felt 95% sure. Never 100%. That sliver of doubt can do, and has done, a lot of damage.

He has made lot of progress since our early days. He seems to understand now, that explaining thoughts and feelings is important. It's still hard for me to put it all together, because I believe he is being coy (although there is no need.) But I don't see anything to be discouraged about at all. He's already obviously worked hard at it, plus, I don't think I need as much verbal confirmation as I once did. (My marriage was pathologically verbal, so frankly it would be nice not to feel drowned in so much emotional noise).

This is a very novel and interesting concept to me - and I don't think it is unique to AS at all. What else have you learned from the Relate sessions? Can you give an example of a buzzy "emotion thing" you got right the first time?

P.S. I'm having a moment of insecurity, and I feel very foolish. But I'm interested to know: what do you all think the chances are that my Aspie will eventually come around?

I've been following this thread and while I'm sure you and he can come to some kind of detente or understanding, I don't think there *is* any "coming around" possible. I hope some other people will disagree with me, but how you've described him is fundamentally how most of us are. Unless we commit ourselves to figuring out and doing things the NT way, we fail a personal relationships that have a lot of requirements. A lot.

Best guess from where I stand, 50:50. I'd advise continuing a while longer, if you can, but maybe lay down some benchmarks and review the situation in a few months' time, to see if anything has changed. But no doubt your heart will decide for itself.

I didn't explain myself very well.........I don't know what the bell means when it goes off, but I don't assume anything. Not that I would deny being prone to irrational anxiety.

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Yes, it's so easy to hide behind a jerk. I'm sure my last partner doesn't have what it takes for a mature, long-term relationship, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I have those qualities myself. Just that I wasn't given a fair test yet.


Yes, unjustifiable anger is hard to deal with when it's intense. It's the stuff that crime is made of.


I think these social changes-of-mind can be extremely awkward for Aspies. We usually have to emotionally prepare for social events, and will often rehearse and do a lot to anticipate and pre-empt the likely problems, then somebody casually announces, "no, we're not doing it." But yes, we need our hypocrisy pointing out, and I think if anybody can do that gently enough, it should make a difference, because I think a lot of us strongly believe in "do as you would be done by".........I know that paradigm isn't absolutely universal, but I'd be up before my internal ethics committee in no time if anybody pointed out a way in which I wasn't sticking to the paradigm.

Must confess I've sometimes wondered how long it will be before you begin to lose faith, if results continue to come so slowly for you. But it's not my role to influence you over that, and I really don't know if it will work out between you or not.


Not weird here. I could never cope when, while shopping with my wife, we bumped into people she knew. Mitigating circumstances were that shopping with her was always a gruelling experience - no allowances made for my Aspie traits - so when I then suddenly got plunged into an unexpected social situation with people I didn't know, I wouldn't know what to say. But it wasn't just because of the stress of the shopping. Suddenly finding an unexpected person in the mix has always been a difficult one for me. When she tackled me about being reluctant to join in with her social circles, I used to say that I married her and not her associates. It's difficult - Aspies are often rather picky about who they hang out with, for good reason (simply not up to the task with a lot of people in terms of social skills), but most mainstream people kind of expect marriage to mean some degree of inclusion in the family, and of course it's much better for all if everybody gets on.

And sadly, partners have presented me with some pretty difficult people over the years - jealous ex-lovers masquerading as friends, a father who disliked me on sight and refused to say more than the absolute minimum to me, a mother who after being introduced to me as her daughter's partner, tried to set her daughter up with a blind date, a nephew with an anger management problem that had been known to lead to violence against my partner, a woman who was quite blatantly being emotionally unfaithful to her partner. And Aspies can be such purists. And don't underestimate the damage our guilt feelings can do in this. I had to reject some of the people I mentioned, but I never once felt really confident that it was fair for me to do that.....I wasn't just concerned at the obvious loss (I used to see myself getting on well with all of them, before I met them, I really wanted it that way, every time), it was my inability to read people and to know whether my dislike of them was justifiable. Luckily (if it can be called luck), most of my partners have been rather reclusive and "couply" themselves, the last one so much so that I was the one urging her not to shun her mother, so there hasn't been all that much pressure. I think it's a good sign if the Aspie knows it's highly desirable to get on with the partner's people, though I think it can only be an expectation if the social skills are good enough. I'd want to see some evidence that a partner was at least trying a little bit with my friends, but if it were an Aspie, I'd keep the pressure low.
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Well, they say 3 is a crowd..........it's definitely a lot more complex than one-to-one, we have to listen more, it's possible to get left out, you know what people are like, anybody who doesn't speak up, mostly gets ignored.


Sounds more like a romance than a relationship, but there has been progress. I'm not knocking romance.


Yes I think they will be testing times, if and when they happen.


You're more than welcome. There's a lot of catharsis for me too, in telling some of my anecdotes and making the occasional comment that might help clear a few blocks.

Right - that was my plan. Maybe I should clarify, I don't have an immediate timeline in mind. Within a year or two would be nice, since we're going gray, and he's going to need help with the kids as they approach puberty. He has no idea what to do with them, one-on-one, other than watch movies. He's had difficulties with nannies and babysitters - one simply vanished, left all her stuff, and now he thinks their references lie.

When we last talked, he described how his work is easier these days, since he has established a base of long-term clients with whom he has a rapport. I said, "yes, exactly. That's why you should stick with me." That seemed to have an impact.

I too have been following this thread-since the beginning. A while ago I asked you how things were going and you said:

I thought wow that's a while from now. That's a season or so from now. You seemed okay with that though. I was thinking about it yesterday. I thought about how my Aspie (yeah I hate saying that too sometimes, but like mentioned before it's for anonymity's sake) and I talk almost every day. I wondered if he took a "hiatus" to sort some things out, how long would I wait?

You have made such an effort to understand him and you have all this knowledge. It just seems like you should get the chance to try out your new "skills".

I'm sorry if this has been discussed already but what do you think he would do if you tried contacting him first?

I think this is a nice gameplan..kids,ex-wife...it's a lot to deal with. However, I think you'd be able to help him handle it all.